Area Student Selected as Texas All-State Musician
Nailah Donatto, a member of the Liberty High School Choir has earned the prestigious honor of being named a Texas AllState Musician. Despite the innumerable challenges encountered throughout this school year, 2021 All-Staters remained committed to their personal musical development. They demonstrated the very perseverance and dedication that ongoing participation in a music program fosters.
Nailah Donatto was chosen for this impressive honor through a competitive process that began last fall and included District, Region, and Area levels. Nailah sings with the Liberty High School Chorale under the direction of Christie Bean, a member of the Texas Music Educators Association, a 19,000+ member organization headquartered in Austin. This is Nailah’s first time to perform as a member of a TMEA AllState organization. Nailah is the child of Victor and Tonya Donatto.
TMEA sponsors the Texas All-State audition process to promote students’ dedication to their musical knowledge and skill and to encourage educators to support their students in this development. AllState is the highest honor a Texas music student can receive.
Over 50,00o students from around the state initially entered the audition process, and 1,860 students have been selected for 2021. This competitive process begins throughout the state in auditions hosted by 33 TMEA Regions. Individual musicians perform selected music for a panel of judges who rank each instrument or voice part. From this ranking, a select group of musicians advances from their Region to compete against musicians from other areas in eight TMEA Area competitions. The highest-ranking musicians judged at the TMEA Area competitions qualify to a TMEA All-State music group.
Because of the impacts of the pandemic, TMEA will not host a 2021 performance event.
The Texas Music Educators Association is an association of over 13,500 school music educators dedicated to promoting excellence in music education. To learn more about TMEA and its rich 100-year history, go to www. tmea.org/centennial.